1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to an ink jet recording method which can produce a high-quality printed image on plain papers and specialty recording media for ink jet recording, and an ink jet recording apparatus for the ink jet recording method.
2. Background Art
Ink jet recording is a method wherein an ink is ejected as a droplet through a fine nozzle to record letters or figures onto the surface of a recording medium. Ink jet recording systems which have been put to practical use include: a method wherein an electric signal is converted to a mechanical signal using an electrostrictive strain to intermittently eject an ink reservoired in a nozzle head section, thereby recording letters or symbols on the surface of a recording medium and a method wherein an ink, reservoired in a nozzle head section, in its portion very close to the ejection portion is rapidly heated to create a bubble and the ink is intermittently ejected by volume expansion created by the bubble to record letters or symbols on the surface of a recording medium.
Various properties are required of inks in the ink jet recording, and examples of such properties include fast drying of the printed image, freedom from feathering in the printed image, even printing on various recording media, freedom from color-to-color intermixing in the case of multi-color printing, and good waterfastness and lightfastness of the print.
What is further important in the ink jet recording is to realize a good image on various recording media. In particular, formation of a good image not only on a specialty recording medium optimized for ink jet recording but also on inexpensive, easily available plain paper has been desired in the art. In order to realize the formation of an image having good quality on plain paper, for example, Japanese Patent Laid-Open No. 41171/1991 proposes use of a black ink, which is less likely to penetrate a recording medium, and a color ink which easily penetrates the recording medium. Likewise, in order to realize the formation of an image having good quality on plain paper, Japanese Patent Laid-Open No. 128514/1994 proposes a recording method which comprises depositing a first liquid containing a water-soluble resin having in its molecule at least one carboxyl group or an anhydride thereof or a sulfone group onto a recording medium and then incorporating a dye-containing ink into the liquid-deposited area.
Further, various ink compositions using a pigment as the colorant have also been proposed in the art. Using the pigment as the colorant aims to realize a good image on plain papers. However, it has been found that realization of high quality on plain papers makes it difficult to realize a high-quality image on specialty papers for ink jet recording.